Coming off the worst season in their history, the Reds need to get results in 2013 or risk losing their loyal fan base.

Toronto FC head coach Paul Mariner, left, and Earl Cochrane, director of team and player operations, address the media during a news conference at the team's training facility in Downsview on Tuesday Oct. 30, 2012.

By:Daniel GirardSports Reporter, Published on Wed Oct 31 2012

For six years, Toronto FC has operated on the hope of next season.

As each miserable one ends, reasons are offered to feel optimism for the one to follow.

That Groundhog Day refrain resurfaced Tuesday as the club held a news conference at its Downsview headquarters to mark the end of the 2012 season, the club’s worst yet.

But amidst all the familiar wait-until-next-year talk by the 19 players and their two bosses over the course of nearly three hours was a recognition, perhaps for the first time, that if TFC doesn’t turn things around in 2013, more than their jobs are at stake.

“Next year is very, very vital for this franchise,” said defender Richard Eckersley.

Added goalkeeper Stefan Frei: “Big picture, I think vital is a good term to use.”

“We want to give something back to the fans because they deserve it,” he said.

The honeymoon ended long ago for TFC, once the model expansion franchise with seemingly unwavering fan support and an atmosphere at home games that was the envy of every other franchise across Major League Soccer.

Seven head coaches in six losing seasons will do that. Ditto with no sniff at the playoffs.

Even with deep discounts on season tickets for 2013, divorce on the grounds of cruelty from even the most loyal among their fans seems likely if there’s no 2013 turnaround.

Frei, who went down with a season-ending leg injury after appearing in only the opening match of 2012 when 47,658 fans packed the Rogers Centre for a CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final against the Los Angeles Galaxy, acknowledged that while the players have had numerous restarts with coaching changes and new seasons, supporters carry “all the pain from last year and the year before that, and it keeps piling up.”

“We understand that,” he said. “So, results have to come in and they have to come in soon.”

That will begin with the overhaul of a roster that delivered a 5-21-8 record in 2012.

Head coach Paul Mariner, who took over the job from Aron Winter in early June with the club at 1-9-0, said bluntly he believes his roster contains just seven bona fide MLS starters. Given injuries to key players, including Frei, designated players Torsten Frings, Danny Koevermans and Eric Hassli, the team struggled mightily, he said.

“We had too many fringe players asked to play too many games,” Mariner said.

But rather than a parade of off-season signings, Mariner maintains he just needs four or five new, MLS-ready faces to compete in 2013. That, the healthy return of the injured and depth from youngsters who learned on the job this season will suffice, he said.

“I’m really comfortable they’ll be fine,” he said of his three veteran designated players.

Finishing dead last among 19 teams also means the top pick in the MLS SuperDraft.

“It’s got to be somebody who’s going to come in and make an impact,” Mariner said of the first overall pick from among NCAA players and other newcomers in January.

Mariner said he and Earl Cochrane, TFC’s director of team and player operations, hope to stock the roster quickly so they can “hit the ground running” for the January pre-season.

Chief among their needs is an experienced central defender.

Clearly changes are coming, with the club holding the 2013 option on many players.

Ryan Johnson, Adrian Cann and Milos Kocic were among those who admitted Tuesday that while they’d like to return, they may have played their last game with the Reds.

Cochrane said despite the MLS salary cap there is “flexibility” in the club payroll to retool the roster and that over the next few weeks decisions will be made on who stays.

“It is vital that we put a product on the field that’s going to be able to challenge for a playoff position,” Cochrane said. “We look at the teams that are in the playoffs this year . . . (and) there’s a handful of them that we don’t think we’re that far away from.”

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